Structuralism and Post-structuralism:

    The terms 'structuralist' and 'post-structuralist' are labels imposed for convenience on modes of thought; each term in fact encompasses a heterogeneous array of often conflicting or divergent theoretical positions. The prefix 'post' suggests that 'structuralism' has now been supplanted by a new theory: indeed it has been confidently asserted that Derrida had 'brought the structuralist movement to an end' by his work on deconstruction in the late 1960's and early 1970's. From this perspective, the concepts 'structuralism' and 'post-structuralism' take on a relationship of binary opposition in which the latter term is privileged: the outmoded 'structuralism' has been replaced by the new, improved 'post-structuralism'. Apart from the fact that such binary oppositions are anathema to post-structuralists, it is in fact somewhat misleading to claim that a radical break took place and that the earlier phase was thereby invalidated.

    Developments certainly occurred from within the original structuralist position and divergent tendencies gradually arose, but these were in part continuous or re-appraisals of lines of thought already inherent in earlier stages. As Derrida notes, `we are still inside structuralism in so far as structuralism constitutes an adventure of vision, a conversion in the way of putting questions to any object'. Furthermore, writers such as Barthes do not fit neatly into a single category (and would not wish to) and others (Lacan, Foucault) may be described as structuralist in one text and post-structuralist in another (Sturrock classes them as the former, Selden and Lodge the latter).

    It is possible, however, to identify certain major differences between the two approaches: namely, where structuralism sought to establish a science or poetics of literature (or cultural signifying practices as a whole), post-structuralist thought, following Derrida's critique of the metaphysics of presence, has taken an anti-scientific stance and, pursuing the infinite play of signifiers, has resisted the imposition of any organising system.

    In addition, a range of post-structuralist approaches are a synthesis of deconstruction and other theories derived from Marxism, feminism or psychoanalysis which produce a more historically and socially orientated critique of the text than was the case with the more ahistorical forms of structuralism. These latter developments contrast with the ostensibly apolitical brand of post-structuralism called `deconstruction', largely practised in the USA, which does not relate literary criticism to wider social concerns any more than did New Criticism.

    A further tendency discernible in the later phase of structuralism and in post-structuralism is that the onus is increasingly placed on the reader or critic to produce meanings, rather than solely on the text itself.

    Because post-structuralism chiefly evolved out of a critique of particular structuralist assumptions, it is first necessary to outline their shared foundation in Saussurean linguistics. This is where a central post-structuralist development occurs which departs from the initial structuralist position.

    It was Saussure's linguistic theories, in particular his concepts of the bipartite linguistic sign, its arbitrary relationship to reality, and the diacritical nature of language which have specific relevance for all subsequent variations of structuralist and post-structuralist theory. According to Saussure, language is a system of signs, each of which consists of a signifier (sound image or written word) and a signified (the concept evoked by the signifier). Referents (actual entities) form no part of this relationship: the signified is not a thing but the mental concept of one, and the relationship between the sign and its referent is completely arbitrary, as is the connection between signifier and signified. The link between the sound image/word `cup' and the concept of a cup is a conventional (not a `natural') one. It is language which articulates the two continua of `jumbled ideas' and `vague sounds' to link signifier and signified, forming the units of meaning we term words. The signifier/sound image `cup' has meaning only in that it is phonetically distinguishable from `cap', `cut', cop', and so on; the signified `cup' depends on its semantic difference from related terms such as `beaker', `wineglass', `mug', `tankard' etc to produce its meaning. It is in this respect that language is said to be diacritical: it depends on a structured system of differences for its meaning.

    This differential system organises all aspects of language in various relationships. The sequential or combinatory relationship between the three phonemes which comprise the sound image `cup' or that between the syntactical units of the sentence `the cup is overflowing' is termed `syntagmatic' by Saussure. Those relationships of absence which are brought into operation at the level of both signifier (the phonemes `cup' not `cut' etc) and signified (`cup' not `mug', `tankard' etc) are termed `associative' (later known as `paradigmatic'). Thus any sign can be regarded as the conjunction of a range of elements, linked to the wider system of language both by what is present and what is omitted. Because linguistic elements only acquire meaning according to their paradigmatic or syntagmatic relationships within the overall system and not as a result of a link between the sign and the referent or external reality, language is thus a closed, independent and self-sufficient structure of relations and can be studied as such.

    This gives rise to Saussure's other major distinction: between `langue' (the complete system of language) and `parole' (the individual utterance which derives from it). `Langue' is the proper area of linguistic study, enabling one to identify the underlying principles by which language functions in practice. Read More...